5 Things You Secretly Suspected (Confirmed By Science)

5 People Turn Into Idiots When They're Horny

See, there's this common belief that when people experience a rush of blood to their nether regions, they might not be able to think quite as clearly as ... Hahahahaha! What am I doing? I don't really need to explain this one, do I? Everyone knows in their heart of hearts that horniness slashes a whole bunch of your IQ points, outdated and arbitrary as they might be as a measurement of intelligence. According to our site statistics, the only reason my column gets traffic at all is that roughly 99 percent of you had a brain fart and mistyped something way more exotic, causing my humble piece of online real estate to pop up amidst the heaving bosoms and veiny meat constructs of the other 36 tabs you have open right now. Is that Sasha Grey two tabs down? Say hi from me!

Science Says:

Being horny will indeed make you stupid, according to a group of Canadian psychologists who published their research in 2016 in Archives Of Sexual Behavior, which I was disappointed to find out is the official publication of the International Academy of Sex Research and not some kind of deliberately dry academic fetish porn magazine. Their methods were refreshingly straightforward: They just showed porn to a bunch of college students and then had them fill out a questionnaire about how willing they were to indulge in risky sexual scenarios (such as unprotected sex with a stranger). Shockingly enough, members of the porned-up group were willing to bone their way through the planet compared to the control group and their more SFW viewing materials, since the latter were a little more apprehensive about STD's.

While that result may or may not have been co-authored by Jack Obvious, esteemed Captain of the No Shit Squad, another part of the study had the subjects play video blackjack. As it turns out, horniness-induced dumbassitude isn't exclusively directed toward sexual decisions. The porn-enforced group took a whole lot bolder (read: dumber) chances in the game than the control group. Moral of the story: Maybe don't gamble when you have a boner. Or do, if that's your kink. I'm not your dad, I can't tell you what to do.

4 Men Who Attack Women Online Are Losers

Quick, picture the kind of guy who likes to spew harassment at women over the internet. You're probably imagining one of the time-tested stereotypes -- a Cheeto-dust-covered dude wearing a trilby, or a Chad in a MAGA hat, or maybe a 12-year-old trying to play tough for the lulz. But unless the image you just conjured was the actual mirror, whatever sludgy bottom-feeder you're imagining is almost certainly of the sort you picture as a "loser." What else could these people be, giving shit to others just because of their gender?

Science Says:

The chucklefucks who throw abuse at women online are indeed losers. In fact, it's even more gloriously literal than you'd assume. Instead of taking yet another dump on the chewed old neckbeard/schoolkid/etc. stereotypes, researchers have found that they're literal losers. At gaming. Men who are worse at video games (and thus lose more often) are far more likely to hurl bullshit at women online. The guy who just made some tired "go back in the kitchen" joke? He fucking blows at Destiny 2.

The researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia had a hypothesis that when a woman disrupts male hierarchy in some way, the poorer-performing males are the ones who suddenly start sweating sexism. In 2015, they studied this in the most potentially sexist environment known to humanity -- online FPS games -- and discovered that the guys who were shittier at the games were submissive toward "male-voiced" superior players, but liable to scream abuse the second they recognized the better gamer as a female.

This study was done to support a larger "evolutionary argument" that guys with comparatively low status and dominance are more hostile to women who potentially threaten their status in the social hierarchy. Luckily, at no point in history have these titans of diminished dignity started, say, any sexist harassment movements that specifically center around video games or anything. Oh, wait.

3 Some Day Your Boss' Constant Dickhead Behavior Will Bite Him In The Ass!

Unless you're really fortunate or somehow started out as an asshole supervisor yourself, you've probably had at least one of those flaming turd bosses who channel their vast supplies of frustration, petty aggression, and outrageous personal inadequacies into bullying, belittling, and straight-up abusing their employees. In a work environment like that, it's easy to develop thoughts of karmic retribution. Surely, no one that unpleasant can avoid getting groin-kneed by the Universe at some point. Maybe his home life will go to hell in a hand basket. Maybe someone from the headquarters pops by, pegs him for the assbasket that he is and fires him on the spot. Maybe his swimming pool will become infested with flesh-eating bacteria, each shaped like his ex-wife's face, which will eventually infest his dong. What? It could happen.

Science Says:

According to recent research courtesy of Michigan State University, your asshole boss will totally get what's coming to him, and it doesn't even require Sheryl-shaped dong bacteria or any other outside elements. Even better, although you might not notice it, this only takes about a week.

Unfortunately, before that happens, he might actually become stronger. Suppressing dickish behavior is mentally stressful for supervisors, so by giving in to his abusive impulses, a boss can receive a host of mental benefits and even replenish his energy, like some bullshit psychic vampire from an office-themed RPG. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for sweet, sweet schadenfreude), that high turns sour in about a week. By that time, the many tiny ways his bullying and belittling have managed to poison the workplace atmosphere outweigh the benefits, and then start slowly chewing away at his mental well-being and ability to engage. This still probably doesn't stop him from acting like a fuckstick, but at least you can relish in the knowledge that he's slowly being hollowed out from the inside. Emotionally, that is. If you want a physical hollowing, the dong bacteria is still your best bet.

And hey, if that's not enough for you, I might know a guy about the bacteria thing.

2 People Who Keep Correcting Other People's Grammar Must Be Total Assholes

I understand the mindset of a grammar Nazi. I used to be a pretty awful one myself before I stumbled ass-backwards into the land of professional writing, where I soon learned how dauntingly difficult it can be to string even the simplest of sentences together. Still, although I've gotten the worst "Uh, actually it's 'zebra' with a z" out of my system, I'm still a jerk in a multitude of other ways. So by virtue of gleeful misuse of anecdotal evidence, I've always thought that people who have a tendency to correct your grammar are fuckwads by default. And so do you. Don't pretend that you don't. There's just something about that "Here, let me correct your mistakes" stance that's just a tad too high-horse to belong to anyone who's not an active butthole.

Science Says:

Yeah, there's a link between flipping your shit over grammar and having negative character traits. In fact, it's accurate enough that you can even get a sense on what type of asshole your average Grammar Nazi is, based on the mistakes they prefer to focus on. Here, read this and discover what kind (if any) you are:

Hey! My name is Pat and I'm interested in sharing a house with other students who are serious abuot there schoolwork but who also know how to relax and have fun. I like to play tennis and love old school rap. If your someone who likes that kind of thing too, maybe we would mkae good housemates.

If your first instinct is that the only way you'd share a house with Pat is if said house is on fire and you get to chain them to a wall, then you're A) probably an introvert, as they're more sensitive to grammar and typos, and B) absolutely correct, because that message comes from research done by linguists at the University of Michigan, and it's specifically manufactured to infuriate people who care about grammar. Researchers made test subjects read emails from a "potential future housemate" with a deliberately unisex name, and then assess what kind of person this was. Their answers were cross-referenced with a Big Five personality test the subjects also took, and a pattern of assholery emerged. Less open and more conscientious people seem to be particularly sensitive to typos, while people are more likely to correct grammar the less agreeable their personality is.

Also, at least one Cracked columnist was driven to a nigh-homicidal rage when he discovered that the paper calls grammar errors fucking "grammos." Is ... is that a thing? Sounds like a Harmony Korine movie. Please, let's never make it a thing.

1 Being Drunk Unleashes The Real You

They say that the best WWE characters are the ones who are just the wrestler's real persona turned up to 11. As anyone who's ever had alcohol can attest, the fastest way to achieve that effect is by getting drunk. Everyone has a Drunk Me hiding inside of them, just waiting for an adequate dose of booze to stomp into their own personal Madison Square Garden and challenge Hulk Hogan to a dick-wrangling contest. Depending on your personality and tolerance, that person can manifest after the first drink or the 11th. I'm pretty affable and low-maintenance until around the seventh beer, which is when I start staring at people and daring them to touch my beard. Maybe there's a piece of candy in there. Maybe the face of my symbiotic twin. Touch it. Find out.

The thing is, there's always that sneaking suspicion: What if that drunk person -- that person who's way more likely to speak their mind than Sober You, way more extroverted and honest and experimental and horny and generally deviant than you'd normally ever dare to be -- is the real you? Am ... am I really the "touch my beard" guy, while the (mostly) sober person writing this column right now is just a pale imitation, shackled and restricted by the norms of society and pants? Say it ain't so, science!

Science Says:

As much as we'd all like to use the old "That was the booze, I'm not really like that at all" excuse for that one time when we drunk-dialed all our exes, compared our boss to a genital wart to his face, and woke up in a ditch beside a stolen police motorcycle, science disagrees. Alcohol doesn't make you do stupid stuff; it just dulls the brain's "alarm signal" which monitors your mistakes, allowing you to do all the stupid stuff you wanted to do anyway.

According to a 2011 "Let's get them drunk and scan the shit out of their brains as they do stupid drunk stuff" study at the University of Missouri, you're not behaving "unlike you" when you're drunk at all. You just care less about the consequences of saying and doing what you really think and want. This totally applies to our tendency to feel a little friskier after a few drinks, too. This paper, which looks into so much research in the alcohol/boning field that the source notes alone take up eight pages, heavily indicates that although alcohol has powerful aphrodisiac properties, we totally use them to, quote, "wittingly or unwittingly to encourage the reluctant mate or to unleash deviant sexual desires." Christ.

Yeah, you know what all of this means. That thing you did at that party? You know the one. That was you, unfiltered, undistilled, and unleashed. Yes, even the thing with the two clowns and the traffic cone. Especially the two clowns and the traffic cone. Sorry you had to hear it from me. No, don't apologize to me. Apologize to the cone.

Pauli Poisuo is a Cracked columnist and freelance editor. Here he is on Facebook and Twitter.

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